Well, it had to happen. I'm not sure that I realized it started this early, but I guess we are halfway through Exodus now, so the law had to come in at some point.
We were all having such a nice time, too, what with our adultery, idol-collecting, mass murder, etc, etc...
Oddly enough (or maybe not even remotely oddly...) before we actually get codified law, we get an example of very bizarre interpretation of law by a judge (Moses, in this case).
God carefully explains to Moses just how not allowed to go near Mount Sinai when He's on it the Israelites are. He tells Moses that they're not allowed to go on the mountain, near the mountain, they can't touch the mountain, and until He says so, they'd better not look at it just to be safe...
And you thought these guys were picky about what you could touch, go near or look at...
Moses has been told, in no uncertain terms, that the thing the Israelites are not allowed to step on, touch, approach or otherwise interact with is The Mountain. He is, presumably, not a dullard. He has, presumably, understood the very, very clear instructions he's been given.
So what does he do? He marches straight over to the Israelites and tells them, in no uncertain terms, not to go near women for three days.
Wait... what?
Whatever. I have no idea. All I know is that it's probably a good thing that God chose this moment to start codifying His laws for His people and start getting more explicit. Jeez.
The laws are interesting. Not only because there appear to be only 9 in "the ten commandment"... Doesn't anyone else think that Ex. 20:2-6 is all just one commandment?
2 "I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. 3 "You shall have no other gods before Me. 4 "You shall not make for yourself an idol, or any likeness of what is in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the water under the earth. 5 "You shall not worship them or serve them; for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children, on the third and the fourth generations of those who hate Me, 6 but showing lovingkindness to thousands, to those who love Me and keep My commandments.
Either that or the strict division of them into 10 is sort of missing the point a little, especially considering that He goes on, in short order, to list dozens more that never end up making the cut into the Top 10, as decided by future centuries...
These laws are interesting because they present a distinct problem to anyone trying to use the Bible as a rule book, especially today. The rules laid out in chapter 21 manage to be both comparatively progressive (although I admit to lacking the knowledge of ancient near-east customs and culture that would allow me to accurately and thoroughly deconstruct just how their more progressive than those of neighbouring groups and cultures) and antiquated/draconian/tyrannical, mostly in their punishments, which is almost always death. The manner of death is usually unspecified, but when it is specified, it's by stoning or by arrow-based firing squad.
Either way, distinctly unpleasant.
But setting the penalties for the moment, there are some interesting elements to these proto-personal-injury-liability statutes.
For instance, and I know this comes before it really gets into the personal injury stuff, slavery is present and accounted for, yes, BUT, you're only allowed to own a slave for 6 years, and that's it. Nobody can buy him from you, you can't collect money from him for his freedom, he's just free and clear and that's that. I don't know for sure, but this seems like the kind of thing that would have been deemed, by the "Christian" proponents of the slave trade, to be more a guideline than anything steadfast (picking and choosing has always been the story with OT laws, obviously).
Not that its entirely benevolent, of course. First, slavery is still a perfectly acceptable thing here, and then there's that little matter of if the master gives his slave a wife who gives him kids, at the seventh year the slave is forced to choose between his family and a complete lifetime of bondage. This sucks.
While we're delving into minutiae, it's interesting that the oft-quoted "eye for eye" stipulation only applies, in the text, to the instance where two guys are fighting and one of them hits a pregnant woman who is injured.
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